HYDERABAD, March 31: Medium-pacer Narenderpal Singh (six for 56) was the one-man demolition squad for Hyderabad on Day Two of the five-day Ranji Trophy cricket quarter-final against Bengal. The home side, after being dismissed for 209 in 110.5 overs, hit back strongly and took six Bengal wickets for 137 runs at the Gymkhana here today.It was indeed a gallant fightback by Hyderabad. Narenderpal Singh rightly rose to the occasion with his incisive bowling, especially in the first spell when he grabbed the first five wickets to rock the Bengal batting. In his second spell, the medium-pacer broke the sixth wicket pair of Saba Karim (45 batting, 210m, 163b, 4x4) and Srikant Kalyani (39; 165, 112b, 6x4) to put the contest on even keel. He had Kalyani snapped by Daniel Manohar at fourth slip after this pair had pushed the score from 39 for five to 121.
That there was something for the bowlers on this wicket was proved in the morning when Bengal medium-pacer Subroto Banerjee (three for 64) produced a beauty ofan outswinger to remove the stubborn A Nandakishore (44; 208m, 147b, 6x4). He finished with a morning spell of 7-4-6-1.
Off-spinner Ajoy Verma (four for 31) took over from Banerjee and in his four-over spell he ended Hyderabad's innings by scalping the last three wickets. He, in fact, was on a hat-trick and looked to emulate Saradindu Mukerjee's feat on the very ground.
SCOREBOARD
Hyderabad (1st Innings): A Shetty c & b Charanjit Singh 9, D Manohar st Karim b Shiv Sagar Singh 44, T Ravikumar c Karim b A Verma 8, V Pratap c Lahiri b S Banerjee 28, MV Sridhar c Lahiri b Banerjee 28, A Nandakishore c Karim b Banerjee 44, N David b U Chatterjee 9, Youraj Singh not out 25, V Raju b Verma 12, Narenderpal Singh b Verma 0, Kanwaljit Singh c Lahiri b Verma 0. Extras (lb 2): 2. Total (110.5 overs): 209.
Fall of wickets: 1-17, 2-38, 3-85, 4-89, 5-146, 6-157, 7-181, 8-209.
Bowling: S Banerjee 29-9-64-3, Charanjit Singh 7-0-23-1, U Chatterjee 35-18-44-1, A Verma 15.5-4-31-4,Shivsagar Singh 22-9-41-1, Gandhi 1-0-4-0, Gavaskar 1-1-0-0.
Bengal (1st Innings): A Verma c Youraj b NP Singh 4, Alokendu Lahiri c Nandakishore b NP Singh 9, N Haldipur c Youraj b NP Singh 10, D Gandhi c Youraj b NP Singh 3, R Gavaskar lbw NP Singh 12, Saba Karim batting 45, S Kalyani c Manohar b NP Singh 39, Charanjit Singh batting 10, Extras (b 4, lb 1): 5. Total (for 6 wkts, 68 overs): 137.
Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-23, 3-27, 4-32, 5-39, 6-121.
Bowling: NP Singh 18-4-56-6, Manohar 3-1-10-0, David 9-4-6-0, Raju 24-8-43-0, Pratap 5-4-1-0, Kanwaljit 9-4-16-0.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
